Error 404: Universe not Found

[Rushu42]

As part of a contest with my dad, I have to post a short story online. I had one week to write this. Please be kind. 

Without further ado, I present Error 404: Universe Not Found.

     Tim’s computer gave a pleasant Bing! as he pressed his finger to the power button. His squeaky office chair, predictably, squeaked as he sat down and jiggled the mouse. The screen of the computer, however, remained firmly blank. He frowned and moved it again. Still nothing. Frustrated, he mashed several random keys of the computer. A moment later the screen began to fade into white. Then, with a thoroughly unpleasant noise that was rather reminiscent of fingernails on a whiteboard, a large block of densely packed text appeared on the screen. Tim scrunched his brow. That was odd. Normally the screen would jolt rather suddenly to his monitor’s backdrop, a generic picture of a boring bit of ocean. He didn’t know much about computers, though; perhaps he had gotten some kind of an update? He tried aimlessly waving the mouse about for a moment. Not much happened. Tim peered closer at the text. It appeared to be mainly comprised of indecipherable scribbles that gave him a general feeling of unease the longer he looked at them. This was clearly not good. Perhaps his computer had been hit with some sort of virus. He tentatively poked a few letters on his keyboard. There was a strained pause, during which Tim was sure that nothing would happen. Then, unexpectedly, the language on the screen changed to English. Tim blinked. 

    It took a moment for anyone to realize what had happened. The transition was seamless. But all around the world, conversations trailed off, street signs were squinted at, and books dropped to the floor. The entire world was suddenly speaking, reading, and writing in English.

     Tim scanned the text. It appeared to be some kind of code, though of what, Tim couldn’t tell. He began to scroll down the page. On a whim, he changed a random number, then hit “enter”.

     Red. The sky was suddenly red. People everywhere were pointing this out to each other, as if only they could see it. “Look. It’s red! Bright red! It was blue a second ago, I swear!” And they were all speculating, in English, about what it could possibly mean.

     Tim sat back, disappointed. Nothing had changed. He glanced around his dimly lit basement, stared at the screen for a minute, then sighed and pulled out his phone. He dialed the helpline number that was discreetly printed on the side of his monitor, and waited. Three rings later, he was explaining his problem to a very passive aggressive IT employee. And then he was on hold for what was clearly about to be at least several hours. Tim sighed again and put his phone on his desk. He drummed his fingers for a moment. The code on the screen sat temptingly, daring him to try something. He considered it for a few moments. Then he reached forward and slowly highlighted a block of text at random. Then he hit delete. The text vanished. 

     In downtown New Delhi a large apartment building suddenly disappeared. The contents thereof tumbled to the street below, and pandemonium ensued. Several buildings adjacent to the first began to behave erratically, seeming almost fuzzy, like static. The area was immediately evacuated.

     An error message began to flash on Tim’s screen. It gave several seemingly arbitrary numbers, and beneath was a sentence comprised almost entirely of words he didn’t understand. Tim looked around guiltily, although what he was looking for, he wasn’t sure. Then his eyes drifted back to the screen. At the bottom of the message box were two buttons. One was marked “Undo”, the other “Ignore”. He clicked.

     Suddenly the building was back. A very confused team of police officers had begun to investigate the scene, but they leaped backward as the structure reappeared. Some angry shouting ensued, and several people began to pray.

     Tim looked at his phone again. Mind numbing music was still softly emanating from it, as if to remind him that the call hadn’t been disconnected. The people on the other end were simply ignoring him. He glanced at his watch, then at the computer. Then he tapped the “Escape” button. 

     A list of figures on a screen at NASA headquarters blinked, then changed. Satellite pictures began to gradually distort. Scientists began to murmur as readings began to shift. It took a few minutes before someone realized what must have happened. “Sir,” she said to her boss, “Look at this.” Her pointed finger indicated a line of data. “There’s only one way to explain this. We’re somehow getting farther away from the sun.”

     Tim grumbled under his breath as his screen remained unchanged. He fiddled with a pen on his desk, shooting periodic glares at his phone.

     A few people began to notice the temperature change. It was getting colder, and rain began to turn to sleet, snow to ice. At NASA, astrophysicists were scrambling for a cause, some reason for why the Earth would suddenly escape from its orbit around the sun. And the red sky was only confusing matters. Many believed that it was the end of the world.

     Tim frowned. Was it colder? He reminded himself for the umpteenth time to fix his basement heater. He rolled his head back and stared at the ceiling, trying not to listen to the terrible music coming out of his cell phone. He looked back at the screen. He remembered something his brother had shown him, suddenly, and his fingers found three keys. Ctrl-Alt-Del. He pressed them. And all was gone.

     The program had unexpectedly crashed. All that was left was a massive flat plane, blue, stretching into eternity. And somewhere in the center of infinity was a few lines of text in small white print. It read Error 404: Universe not found.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Rushu42

[Kingsdaughter613]

Nice job! It reminds me of some of Asimov’s short stories!